First Grade News

Elizabeth.allen@duluthedison.com 218-728-9556 -ext. 2006 Jamie.Alexander@duluthedison.com 218-728-9556 ext 2008

Things to Note

You can also find the newsletter at www.mrseallen.weebly.com. Check it out! February reading and math calendars can be found in students Friday folders. Mrs. Fitzpatrick, one of Northstars fabulous art educators, is hosting an Empty Bowl Making event for primary students on Feb. 24th and March 11 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. here at Northstar in the elementary art room. including a participation form that needs to be returned to school by February 12th as space is limited. The bowl will be created in TWO sessions (one night to make the bowl and one night to glaze it) so you must commit to both nights to participate. If your student has turned in his/her participation form, Mrs. Fitzpatrick is expecting you! Once space is full, any money and forms she receives will be returned to me, to return to students. I will be placing a book order Monday after school, as there are some orders pending. I will also make an order at the end of February, as it is I love to read month! If you would like to make an order you can go to www.scholastic.com and look for the link to Scholastic Reading Clubs. Our class activation code is KDCNB. Happy book shopping!

A Look Ahead
Feb. 12- participation and money for Mrs. Fitzpatricks Empty Bowl Making event due. Space is limited so it is best to turn this in ASAP if you and your student are interested! winter break: Feb. 17-21st Feb. 28th Reading/Math calendars due for a free dress day on March 7th No school March 31st March 27th is the last day of 3rd quarter and there will be no school the following Friday, March 28th.

So, What Did We Learn?

Reading, Writing, and Grammar This week we read an informational text called Lets go to the Moon! Through this story we practiced the comprehension skill of identifying the main idea. After your student has read a page to you (or themselves) at home, can they tell you the main idea of that page? Students also practiced identifying the different sound spelling patterns for the long u vowel sound. We learned that the long u sound is tricky as the u_e spelling pattern can have two different sounds depending on the word. For example the word tune is spelled with u_e just like the word cute, but tune says /oo/ like in moon and cute says the long u sound. Students also finished editing their animal reports and began writing personal narrative stories about a time they got hurt. We call them our Ouch Stories. Math This week we reviewed unit 5 and took the unit 5 assessment. We also completed the first two lessons of unit 6. Today students took a pretest for unit 6. If I find that students already know much of what is going to be taught, I will be supplementing some of the lessons with an enrichment activity centered around the concept of money. Depending on the results, this may mean that some students are working on the enrichment activity after being taught a mini lesson, while other students continue to learn from daily lessons. Unit 6 homelinks will still be assigned, as it is still important to practice these skills. Science and Social Studies This week in science we studied desert habitats and the characteristics of birds, such as the dessert Elf Owl. We learned that deserts are considered places that get 10 in or less of rainfall a year, even if it happens to be a cold place! In social studies students continue to study land formations found on maps, as well as using a compass rose to locate specific locations on a map. Homework Math: Homelinks: 6.1, 6.2 * consider using a deck of cards to play Addition Top It. Each player draws two cards and adds them together. The higher sum wins the round. If a tie occurs, each player draws another two cards and the player with the higher sum takes all 8 cards! * check out the reading and math MAP websites that were sent home with report cards as part of the third quarter goal. This can be used in place of the Everyday Math Online site. The links can be found on the class website. (*see Things to Know for website)

Reading: *Students should be reading 20 minutes a day at home. Research shows that students get better at reading when reading books that are a good fit for them, meaning they can read them with 98% accuracy! *The following are our Words to Know for the week. Your student should memorize and be able to read these words automatically. about could sure by dont there car maybe